Ache
by Simone Robinson
Summary: In order to do his duty to his family, Raph is sent on a training trip. Though reluctant, he goes, just as Leo did all those years ago. Now, Leo sits alone, with nothing but his own words to keep him company. He writes feverishly to his loved one each day,love never wavering, in an attempt to fill the gap Raph left, always waiting,all the while praying for his return,for a miracle.


**AN: I suppose I better put up this warning. It is not usual for me to write T-cest, and it is not expected of me. I know full well many of you are dead against it, and I respect that fact. Please, though, this fic is deeply, terribly personal to me, and if you do not like it, please, instead of flaming, just stop reading. Thank you very much.**

**A series of journal entries from Leonardo to Raphael, starting on the day Raphael left.**

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**Ache **

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**Chapter One**

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_16/07/2012_

I miss you. Oh Gods, I miss you so bad. Every few moments it hits. My love is gone. No more hugs, no more kisses, no more sweet murmurings in my ear when the night gets too dark. No more touches, no more quiet moments, wrinkled beaks and nuzzled cheeks. All over. All gone.

For so long there will only be nights filled with loneliness and emptiness. An empty bed, with cold, icy sheets that make me shiver and reach out my arms into the darkness, hoping, praying, that I'll touch your hand and you'll pull me near, wrap your arms, strong and soft, around me.

Come back and save me. I never thought I would need saving. Not like this. Come back. Please, my love, please. I need you. The craving burns beneath my skin, crawls up my throat, tears my heart apart. Please. Please come back, please. Oh gods, I need you. I need you so goddamn bad.

I cannot do this, Raph. I cannot be without you, I cannot. I cannot, I cannot, I cannot. It hurts. Hurts so bad. Hurts so bad, like something has been torn from me and the hole just will not close.

I can't breathe, I can't think, I don't want to think, but the memories of you just go round and round and round and make my heart break with longing for you. I want it again, it is not fair! Not fair on us! I want you here, I need you here, I cannot breathe without you. I cannot be without you.

Aches so bad. My heart hearts so bad. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. You're my whole world and everything in it and you got onto a plane and went. Just went.

Not because you wanted to, but because you had to, because you had no choice, because others love and need you.

I could never blame you. Never. But gods it hurts.

You left today. On orders, for training, for friends, for family. You did not want to, but you did because you had no choice. Will those aching, long moments before you left ever truly be enough to sustain me until you are back into my arms?

I miss you.

_Leonardo_

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_17/07/2012_

Unsure if I am going to show you the first entry when you get home. It's weakness like none other. But perhaps I will cease to care. Perhaps, when too many days have passed, I will give up, and do anything at all to have you home, forgoing honour for you in my arms. Perhaps. It is too soon to admit a thing. You know me. You know me well enough to understand.

I have been faking it today. Through breakfast, through katas, through leading.

But I got up late. And everyone noticed. I cannot make the mistake again.

I have been trying to convince myself that everything was normal, everything was fine. But it's too normal. Too much like before days when you'd be sick in the infirmary. Too much like you were never here, and I can't stop the way my eyes sting and my throat aches. How my arms ache for you and the sudden thought will sweep me up that you're just not here.

And I will crack.

I crack in a million and one places and just stand there and clench my fists, praying that I can glue myself back together before anyone notices, before the shards of glass get into other people's feet and hands and hearts, leaving them bleeding and raw.

But it's hard to take another step on ankles that are made of fine china.

I am eating one of those truffles you bought right now. Rare I eat chocolate. They are the ones you never got to taste. They're nice. They make me long for days completely out of character for us both, snuggled in bed, wrappers scattered around us, arms around each other, lips tasting of coco sweetness.

And then it hits me.

How long until I have that again? How long until I have that one more moment. How long until the tears I will never admit to will be kissed by your lips? How long until I can do the same?

And in that moment, the thing I need most in the world, is to have you back again.

Everything reminds me of you.

Even my father's brief kisses on the cheek remind me of you now. They're not the same, but they're still kisses, and that hurts. That causes bitter sweetness to bubble up inside of me and curl around my heart. When I am hugged, I long for your arms instead, your strength, your softness. And that makes the guilt squeeze me tight, because I love them all so terribly much too, but I can't help comparing it all to you. All to you.

I have been faking it today.

Trying to be strong, convincing myself that I can be strong for you, be happy even when you're not around. But it only works for moments. Only for moments, and then something will strike and more cracks will form. Maybe in time. Maybe in time...

Right now, the ache for my love is too bad.

Come home, Raphael.

_Leonardo_

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_18/07/2012_

You asked me to write for you. To spin sweet words when my heart broke, so that the pain would ease, so that things would be better, so that the gaping hole would somehow been sewn over. Somehow be blocked shut. So that my passions would arise again in my heart, would bubble onto the page like they always have, vault me into success, into success like you always wish for me.

But it is hard to write. Hard to take a breath. Hard to sit in a room flooded with your memories, but barren of you, or your presence. Barren of arms to curl into, barren of a warm body to draw to my heart.

Hard to do anything, to will myself up, to will myself away, hard to gather any will at all. Perhaps it will pass? Perhaps this is just a temporary state of mind, of body, of soul.

Or perhaps I just cannot bear to be away. Not for a week, not for a month, not when I know it is going to be so very long until I can hold you again. I touch the screen which holds your picture, with the desperate prayer that maybe, just maybe, my fingertips with brush your cheek, and not cold plastic. That the 2D form with give way and let my hands curl around the back of your neck, to pull you in tight.

But it never happens.

It never will.

I want to write for you. I want to write, to keep my promise, my vow, the once burning desire for the written word alive. I want to. For you. For the one keeping the longing in my heart, and the one keeping the love, the strength. For you.

But sometimes, the longing for what was, tears into the soft inner of my heart, ripping away at my resolve in chunks, bitter and raw, that I just can't seem to put back. They get pieced and sewed back on when they have to be, messy and skew, waiting until your touch makes my heart whole once again.

Sometimes, the longing hurts. But the thought of losing the ghost of your touch, the memories of how your lips feel against mine, your cheek, your arms, your soft hair, sends panic through me. It makes me tingle, my chest tighten and my mind fight in frantic desperation for the memories, tugging them back to my heart and guarding them with my very sanity.

But my best I promised, and my best I will do.

Even as I remember a perfect sunset, Donatello driving away, my fierce reluctance to let you slip away, alone, during the night as I had.

The sunset was orange and pink, across a sky splattered with stars, a mountain, silhouetted and draped with clouds, standing against it. The sick feeling in my stomach, a knot of dread and panic and desperate desire to run back and stop the plane you'd hidden on.

Even as I remember the cold window frost beneath my fingertips as I slowly wrote the words.

"Miss you"

_Leonardo_


End file.
